Monday, February 08, 2010

Google's Sappy Super Bowl Commercial

Last night, people across the country tuned into the Super Bowl, not just to watch football, but to see the highly coveted commercials. Little did they know, they'd see a minute-long ad from Google. The company hasn't really relied on television ads in the past, though did take to the airwaves to promote the Chrome Web browser last year. The Super Bowl commercial, like the Chrome one, aired on YouTube for a while before making the move to TV.

Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, said in a blog post over the weekend, "We didn’t set out to do a Super Bowl ad, or even a TV ad for search. Our goal was simply to create a series of short online videos about our products and our users, and how they interact. But we liked this video so much, and it’s had such a positive reaction on YouTube, that we decided to share it with a wider audience.”

The ad, called "Parisian Love," demonstrated various features of the Google search engine by portraying an online romance. The screen showed the search engine as a user typed in phrases starting with "study abroad in Paris, France;" followed by lines such as "how to impress a French girl," "long distance relationship advice," and "jobs in Paris;" and finally "how to assemble a crib." Awww.

It was a little sappy, but definitely different than other Super Bowl commercials that were full of male-oriented humor. CBS broadcast the game and said the cost for airing a 30-second commercial was $3 million. The game was expected to attract 100 million viewers.

Watch the Google Super Bowl commercial for yourself:

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